(Before we get going: If you’d like to listen to me talking UNCW budget and hoops on Wednesday’s Port City Sports, click here.)

It wasn’t right away obvious how C.J. Gettys was going to fit into the UNCW puzzle under Kevin Keatts.

The new men’s basketball coach talked about pushing the tempo with a rapid fire attack. That style didn’t seem likely to do any favors for the 7-footer, who slipped completely from the rotation by the end of his redshirt freshman season.

On the other side of summer workouts, Keatts is quick to point to Gettys as the player who has improved the most on his watch. The coach knows it would have been easy for the sophomore center to look elsewhere, but he’s instead dropped at least 15 pounds and improved on both ends.

“To his credit, he’s worked extremely hard to get his weight down, to get in the best shape of his life,” Keatts said. “He’s certainly going to be a good fit for us.”

Gettys has had a rocky first two years in Wilmington. The Ohio native had only played three games when his 2012-2013 season was cut short by a shoulder injury.

Gettys logged just five total minutes over two appearances in the team’s last nine games. He averaged 2.7 points and 1.7 rebounds in 11 games.

Gettys chose to stick it out with the Seahawks, and Cedrick Williams has been impressed by his progress. The 6-foot-8 senior forward is hopeful he’ll be able to play the four-spot more this season, and Gettys could help by logging minutes in the middle. (Tennessee transfer Yemi Makanjuola — with his 7-foot-4 wingspan — should help protect the rim, too.)

“He’s going to be a big key,” Williams said of Gettys. “We don’t want him too small, but we want him to go up and down the floor a little bit. He can do it.”

The changes are noticeable already for Keatts. He said Gettys has better offensive touch than he expected and added his stamina has improved from eight weeks’ worth of conditioning drills. UNCW, however, kept its summer workouts closed to the media.

“I think he’s more explosive,” Keatts said. “I think he’s able to move more on the defensive end, and I think it’s helped him become a better rebounder.”

Nice update Eric. I too thought that he wasn’t going to put in the work since his weight was too high. It was really hurting his mobility. I saw a clip of him in HS that looked much more mobile but he was about 40 lbs lighter. He does have touch and skills. Good to hear that he sees that he has to slim down to be a force. How about Ogbodo? He wasn’t mentioned but would seem to have nice upside as well. Yemi should be able to come in and be a good presence you would think right away. Looking forward to the PGs this year as well. And, we all are looking ahead to the following year but we don’t want to wait too long!

The slim down will help Gettys a lot and will make him less prone to injury. I am like you Bill. Keatts had made some decisions that were a little unpopular and he needs to make the turn quicker than most or the fan base will totally withdraw and then Bass can move on too.

[…] redshirt sophomore center C.J. Gettys is now at 271 pounds, down from 296 when the coach arrived. (Here’s a blog post about him from this summer.) The hope is for the 7-footer to play at 265 pounds. I’ll have more on Gettys next […]